


Lilith

by Hikou



Series: Spiral [4]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-11-30 12:54:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11464026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hikou/pseuds/Hikou
Summary: She'll be as nameless as all the others, but I decide in a romantic way to call her Lilith. [Hikou-verse, Rufus-centric]





	1. Valse Op. 64 No. 2

I see her before anyone else does. 

She looks like a flower I can't quite name, petaled in soft drapes of chiffon whispering delicately past her ankles in an unnaturally choreographed sway. The same gentle color flutters from her shoulders to the precious bands capturing her tiny wrists. It's something so simple as a shawl, but she wears it like dragonfly wings. The paint arched across her face melts into the deep tone of her skin, blending into some brand of masterpiece I can't decipher. A precursory circlet twines its way between her curls, alighting her head like a crown. 

"I've got an 8.5 at ten o'clock," Reno suddenly buzzes into my ear, and I can't tell if I'm more annoyed he's carrying this chatter on our channel or that he's only given her an 8.5. 

I see Rude's head twist marginally on the opposite end of the room. I pretend not to hear Elena's admonishment, restrain the urge to rip the wire right out of my ear. 

I retain my post at the south-east archway and watch Rufus Shinra spin unwittingly into his doom. He'll never even know what hit him. 

Unfortunately, I will.

These silly affairs are still his favorite thing to do, and I think it must be an acquired taste because I never quite get used to all the twirling, the overpriced frescoes of the Shinra ballroom always seem old, and the men in their two-buttoned, bow-tied penguin-suits always blend into the same breed of pompous asshole. He's the sort of egoist who enjoys this extravagance, though, and I suffer his signature stamped on gold-impressed invitations as long as he keeps stamping it on my paycheck. 

I can't imagine what he says to her, but I can tell it's not in the usual elegant way he wags his tongue. He looks young and green; Rufus Shinra looks surprisingly innocent as this beautiful little thing looks up at him with an artfully modest face. 

"Oh, oh, 9 at 3! 9 at 3!" Reno's hissing, but I don't care to look. The orchestra has broken from some side stage and this gangly scrape of Midgar is weaving his way to a piano in the corner. He's not smooth enough to pass for a penguin, but he cleans up well enough in the soft pink tie that matches her dress. He casts a boyish smile on the crowd, and I'm the only one to notice. 

He stares half a minute longer than he should. The silence on the radio is tangible. 

I don't look at Rude.

He sits and starts at a sad note, and in 3/4 time the tune pretends to be happy, but I can hear the chords cry too close together. Their hips square strangely anyway, and suddenly Rufus and his doll have taken flight. 

Their feet don't move too quickly if you watch closely, and the rhythm isn't alarming, but when you look at their faces they glide like humans aren't meant to. He's flying and she's balanced on the grip of his arms. Rufus Shinra's eyes don't leave her face. She looks anywhere but at him. The pianoman's fingers move faster than any pair of disembodied lovers.

"Isn't the next shift supposed to be up yet?" I whisper into my shoulder. 

The spin in too tight circles, in a bigger circle of the dance floor, in between the circles of other couples in declining melody. The keys on the piano bend into shadows that snap away in seconds, as intangible and unattainable as the notes that succeed them. 

"Any minute," Elena assures me.

It stops too suddenly, the last note too loud, too harsh. The penguins and the butterflies resting on their arms look around alarmed, their blame lays heavy on the young man's head, and he only smiles charmingly back at them. Rufus still hasn't looked away from her.

"You're released," Mikari says dejectedly somewhere behind me. In the distance Elena and Reno have become Tseng and Snow, Rude is sneaking his way in my direction from the safe curve of the wall. 

I don't care about safe. 

There are no fancy dresses and no fluttering scarves, but my fashion is hard to refuse in navy blue anyway. I can feel eyes from the wall as I place a hand on his shoulder, whisper nothing important into his ear, coax the pianist from his bench in too few words. He holds his arm out too high as he offers it to me, and I look awkward anyway when I escort him to the door, but there's no chatter to hear on this channel. 

Rufus doesn't look anyway, so I'm safe for a moment in my upstaging scandal, but the woman in his arms casts me a doubtful glance. 

She'll be as nameless as all the others, but I decide in a romantic way to call her Lilith.


	2. Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2

She doesn't look half as pretty without the petals, but Rufus doesn't seem to mind. 

Snow is a mask of impassivity until she passes between us to knock at the too large door before her. I wonder that she doesn't realize how quickly and how swiftly it can crush her as her delicate wrist bends and her knuckles tap out a barely audible request into the wood. She doesn't look up at either of us, and I wonder briefly if she thinks we're gargoyles guarding this legendary office or lions at the gate. 

Snow's face is now incredulous as the door opens marginally, and she's not at the angle to see properly, but I notice the smile on the sliver of Rufus's face visible. I catch the small embrace as my Lilith slips through the crack. 

"She's been coming here a lot," Snow announces as soon as the door clicks closed.

I don't tell her why, if she doesn't know already. 

But Snow is a good Turk, even if she can't recall a detail as minute as this, and I don't blame her because I think I'm the only one who's really taken an interest in this tragedy. I think I might be the only one with the stomach for it even if Snow can sniff out that something isn't quite right. "I don't even remember where she came from. Her appointments are never scheduled, and she never brings any business papers in. She's dressed too casually." She's just talking to hear her own voice by this point, working her way through her own thoughts, while I'm still just stone beside her. "She's too nice-looking to be one of the Honey Bee girls." 

There's a scratch of record player behind the door, some delighted sort of sound followed by the fuzzy sound of keys bending on some long destroyed instrument, under the fingers of some long dead player. 

"I don't even know her name, do you? That's got to be a security issue... We ought to have a file formed on her by now." 

I don't tell Snow that her name is Lilith, that it's pointless anyway as her stay will be short-lived as all the others. Snow is only being a good Turk, and I can't fault her for not seeing one flower in a meadow of millions, especially when there are so many better things to worry about. 

A moment of silence is sacrificed to the muffled notes, the shuffled sound of dance steps, the silent sound of kisses we can't see. It takes her a good while to come to a decision on the next topic, but I still can't fault her because even if she doesn't know, Snow is only a good friend. "Rude's been awful quiet since you left that party. Thing." 

I ignore the irony of this statement. I tell her, "That's Rude's problem."

And if it really is, then she can't figure out while I'm still this awful statue beside her. It's not within her nature to proceed, but she does so anyway, for my benefit I think. In a removed way, it's endearing. "Then the boy--that piano player..."

I wish I had the paper to toss at her, the footnote of page D4, emblazoned with his irrelevant grin because the photos of the crime scene are to gruesome for public display. "They found his body last week floating wrongside-up in the Kalm River. Shame too," I comment too bitterly, falsely accusing, "he was such a nice kid, great talent." 

Snow isn't sure what to think. I'm content to let someone else take the fall. "He didn't..."

I don't tell her I kept the tie.


	3. Grand Polonaise Brillante Op. 22

**Grand Polonaise Brillante Op. 22**

****His smile would be haunting me if I didn't know better. This classic grin, full of life of warmth, hope and promise, charming self-assurance is waiting for me on the nightstand next to her bed. It's the same photo from section D4, but it's only a memento of something no longer real. The scream of a handgun robbed it from the world, and you can record it as many times as you like, but you'll never be rid of that awful fuzzy quality mimicking it. That fuzz I can still hear beneath the digitally remastered playback.

The front door opens and closes elsewhere, and I wonder if she can hear it too, the struggle of technology to contain this spontaneous beauty, something it can never quite grasp. She's probably only thinking how it was she forgot to turn her CD player off.

She jumps ten feet in the air when she enters her darkened bedroom and finds me holding his picture, wearing his pink silk tie around my neck like a scalp--just another sick trophy to parade to the masses. She wants to scream but her bell like voice doesn't know how to make this awful sound; it gets trapped in her throat. Her face contorts in exquisite fear, her hands clamp her mouth shut. I set the picture back down on top the envelope addressed from _Amber UTD, ELECTRIC SOLUTIONS_ , the paycheck inside is too big and it bounces the frame back to topple unforgivingly to the ground. 

"Oh my God," she prays. I'm the only one who hears her. Her eyes dart too fast, she's trying to make ends meet in her head. "Arthur, where's Arthur?" 

I find it odd that she cares now. That it's been weeks since I've swept him out of the ballroom, and only now she wants to know. I straighten my tie in a business-like fashion. "It's come to my attention that you have a conflict of interests with the Shinra company--"

"Oh, God, what did you do?" 

"Normally, we have a standard set of protocol for situations such as these, but in light of recent events, I thought it might be best to offer you an accord--"

"Oh my God, he's dead isn't he?" 

"You may sever your ties with the Amber United company in such a way that President Shinra remains unaware of your contract, or your relationship to the agent assigned to accompany you--"

"Oh, no, Arthur!"

"Yes, that one. Or I can terminate President Shinra's contract with you right here, right now." 

She's sobbing, and oddly she still looks mildly attractive. It's a shame, I think to myself, because she really would have made him a nice ornament for the cameras. I wonder if Lilith knows her own story, if she's read it before as she looks around wildly, for a weapon, for an escape, for some ounce of salvation other than the bargain I've offered her. 

"You're monsters," she tells me shakily. "You're all monsters. You'd better kill me. You'd better kill me like you killed him because I'll never--"

The notes crescendo into the explosion of cymbals the crash of a gunshot, and even wilted she's still pretty. They'll have to use the crime scene photographs for this one, and he'll be upset to receive them with his morning paper and coffee, but we'll placate him with vengeance we don't intend, and President Shinra will go about his life. 

Because Lilith isn't the first of her breed and she certainly is not the last. 

My PHS is buzzing in my pocket as I collect the picture frame from the floor, the envelope drenched in conspiracy and danger, as I tug Rufus's ring from Lilith's finger. Rude's name is glowing into the cloud of death I've orchestrated here, the notes of the piano are drowning out the beeping of his summons. 

I smile; I'll put in for my bonus tomorrow.


End file.
